EDISON — An appeals court has upheld a judge's decision that Edison township officials were wrong in 2009 to exclude two police officers with more seniority in a round of promotions.

The three-judge panel said Superior Court Judge Frank Ciuffani in New Brunswick was right when he said that Bruce Polkowitz should have been promoted to captain and Edward Wheeler should have been promoted to lieutenant in 2009.

At issue were promotions made by former Mayor Jun Choi and former police Director Brian Collier—three from sergeant to lieutenant and three from lieutenant to captain, on Nov. 4, 2009, one day after Antonia Ricigliano was voted in as the new Edison mayor. Ricigliano defeated Choi in the Democratic primary race for the mayoral nomination.

The appellate decisions, released this morning, said all of the promotions were rescinded by Ricigliano soon after she was sworn in in January 2010.

The appellate judges accepted Ciuffani’s reasoning in both cases.

Ciuffani’s decisions in both lawsuits were appealed by other Edison police officers, one, Frank Todd, who was promoted, then lost his promotion, and Gregory Formica, who was not promoted but claimed he should have been.

In his decision, Ciuffani, who made his ruling on summary judgment motions by Polkowitz and Wheeler before the cases went to trial, said Collier “failed to explain his reasoning” for not promoting Polkowitz and Wheeler, both of whom had more seniority than the officers who received promotions.

“We agree that there is no statutory or township ordinance that requires, as a matter of course, that the police director in a non-civil service community, articulate his reasons for promoting one candidate over another,” the appellate judges wrote, adding but where the officers denied promotions have made a case for “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable decision-making in the promotion process, some explanation is required.”

Collier died in January 2010, while both cases were still pending before the trial court and did not provide an explanation of his reasoning for the promotions before he died, the appellate decision said.

The appellate decision said, “the township here concedes (in argument before the appellate judges) it cannot present any justification for its decision” and therefore did not oppose the motions by both Polkowitz and Wheeler for summary judgment.

The appellate judges ruled Formica did not fall into the same category as Polkowitz because he did not have Polkowitz’s seniority and Todd lost because the courts ruled his and the other five promotions were illegal.